Are we attention whores?

It’s been said; “Every writer needs a reader”, but is that true?

I realise I can only speak for myself on blogging, and when I do I say I blog purely for myself. For me Blogging is a vent for … well, whatever is brewing away in my head at the time, which is why you don’t see me blog daily or at set times, I’m here when the muse strikes.

I’ve blogged before about being ‘Internet Famous’, although that was more focused on cosplay, today I’m looking at bloggers.

As bloggers we write, and we take an interest in the writing of others, at least I do, and from what I see online so do others. If people like what they read and agree with it, they’ll share it for others to read, sometimes they’ll even share it if they don’t like what they read when it’s particularly well written.

This is all great and how I would expect a blogging community to work.

Where my initial question comes from is when I see bloggers asking for follows and shares. Do these people live on the likes and follows from faceless internet denizens?

Do they gain sustenance from the numbers of page views their blogs or linked sites get?

Almost. From what I can tell they run websites that hook in to various monification schemes, and their blogs link to their websites where you can see their blog in all it’s glory along with other content they put in there. While at their site you see ads and Christ knows what else by way of other cash generation tools. For some people it’s their living – if you believe the hype.

People who write well, and on topics that will generate clicks will do well, others (like me) not so much. This is why I didn’t go that route.

I feel sad for people who have to whine ‘please follow my blog’, it smacks of the cosplayers in my previous article who would post on community pages “Please like my page, buy stuff from my store”.

What these people are missing is any apparent cognisance of the pillars of marketing. If they’re in it to make money – which they seem to be from what I see, they need to take a better grasp of marketing. Some bloggers do it really well, some really don’t.

One of the worst things I’ve seen was a complaint from a blogger that came across more as a stroppy child getting their way, very much in a ‘It’s my ball and if you wont’ play my way, I’m going home and taking my ball with me’ way. The thing is – this is the internet, we have loads of balls, I’m sure we’ll find someone else to play with.

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Why Charlie Hebdo is helping Terrorists

Two Posts on Charlie Hebdo? Yes these guys have me all riled up.

In my last post I talked about Charlie’s history of bullying and intent to cause offense. This time, I’m talking about what they’re really achieving.

France has been, so far, a barren ground in terms of recruitment for Al Qaeda and Deash (ISIS / ISIL whatever you want to call them), the French Muslims don’t generally seen quite so predisposed towards extremism as those in, for example, the UK.

Charlie Hebdo normally has a circulation of around 30,000 so doesn’t touch anywhere near the numbers you might expect, and certainly not for any useful recruitment tool.

However, the most recent attack, the aftermath of it, and he number of people looking into its history following the attack is now, thanks to widespread coverage, HUGE! so much so that, with financial help from Google, thenext issue is being printed to the number of 1 million copies!

News worldwide has broadcast the images and comments that Muslims found offensive, these images have now reach, literally, billions of people worldwide, and certainly most of France. These offensive images are now out there on the internet – there’s no putting those worms back in the tin, and more and more Muslims will see these images and become offended by them.

In Paris, and elsewhere in France Mosques have come under attack from people raging against the Charlie Hebdo attack. This will aggrevate yet more Muslims as thanks to the widespread hate and biased coverage people are now linking the terror attack to all Muslims.

This in turn is what will fuel these Muslims, some may have formerly been moderates, towards joining Al Qaeda or Daesh – something that couldn’t possibly have happened if Charlie Hebdo had listened to reason back in 2006 and backed away from insulting anyone’s religion.

Instead, they’re now a prime recruitment tool for terrorists. Congratulations Charlie Hebdo.

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#JesuisCharlie? No! #JesuisAhmed!

As a kid, I Was bullied in school. A lot. I was given two sets of conflicting advice on how to handle the bullies;

1 – Stand up to them.

2 – ignore them.

Initially I opted for choice 2, I tried my hardest to ignore them, to let their hurtful words, actions, and images flow off me like water off a duck’s back. The problem was I couldn’t, and I was just taking my anger and frustration as these bullies, and locking it away.

Then, one day, the bullies got what they wanted, a reaction; I lashed out and hit one, and threw a desk at another. As you might guess this action got us both pulled up in front of a teacher and we both got detentions.

This didn’t stop the bullying, in fact it escalated, they knew they’d get a reaction out of me, so they stepped up their actions; name calling, slanderous accusations, hurtful cartoons around the school (and on my books), it was relentless. Again I tried to not let it bother me, and again it wound up just locked away until I snapped.

This time when I snapped and retaliated, I picked the biggest guy, and proceeded to unleash all my rage on him; I broke his arm, broke his nose, and left him bloody and bruised – i short I kicked 7 bags of sand out him.

This time we were pulled up in front of the headmaster.

The guy I beat up was suspended for a time, I had to serve a detention, and on his return we were forced to work together to put on a short play for the whole school on why bullying is a bad thing.

After during my detention I had a number of teachers walk in and tell me, off the record of course, that I’d done the right thing.

As I look back, I’m still not sure I did.

Why is that relevant? Well…

On January 7th this year, 2015, 14 people were shot and killed by two terrorists; two of those people were police officers, 12 were staff at a weekly satirical publication, Charlie Hebdo. The attack was in retaliation to cartoons that insulted the religion of the gunmen. The world was outraged at this terror attack, as was I until I saw one of the Charlie staff interviewed on TV afterwards; “we intended to cause offence” they said. At that point I lost a lot empathy for the publication, and I started looking deeper into who they are and what they do.

Charlie Hebdo was founded in 1992 by the people who were behind an earlier weekly satirical publication “Hara-kiri”. Hara-Kiri was banned from further publication in 1970 after it insulted former French leader Charles deGaulle over his death, in order to get around the ban, they changed the name to ‘Charlie Hebdo’, dually taking the name from Charlie Brown, and the opportunity to poke another stick at Charles deGaulle. They ceased publication in 1981, but resurrected Charlie Hebdo in 1992.

Since 1992 Charlie Hebdo has had several brushes with a backlash; in 2006 the French President, Jaques Chirac condemned the magazine saying that anything that hurt people religious convictions should be avoided, and French Muslims sued claiming the publication contained racist matter, claiming that the cartoons made a link between Muslims and Muslim terrorists.

The case continued through 2006 into 2007 where Charlie Hebdo were acquitted.

In 2011 an issue came out named ‘Charia’ (sharia) Hebdo, which was guest edited by Muhammad. On November 6th that year their offices were firebombed. French Muslims condemned Charlie Hebdo’s mocking of Islam and it’s prophet, but also condemned the attack.

In 2012, timed soon after a number of attacks on US embassies that were apparently in retaliation for ‘The Innocence of Muslims’ film, the publication put out a number of caricatures of Muhammad in the nude, an act which even the French foreign minister condemned as pouring oil on the fires.

So now we come to 2015, and yet another ‘satirical’ poke at Muslims, this time lives were lost, one of them a Muslim policemen, Ahmed Marabet. Charlie Hebdo ridiculed his faith, and he died defending their right to do so.

Those of you not familiar with French as a language probably won’t get the dual meaning of the Je Suis Charlie comment. It has a dual meaning, probably both meant simultaneously in this sense.

‘Suis’ is the singlar of both the verb to follow and the comment of being. So Je Suis Charlie could mean “I am Charlie” in the “I’m Spartacus” sense, or it could mean “I follow Charlie”. It loses the duality once stated in plural (it becomes simply “We Are Charlie”). So the Anglicization of of the French phrase loses something in translation.

Charlie Hebdo and the staff therein aren’t just a satirical publication out for a few dark laughs, they bully and they goad and they cry victim when their victim strikes out at them. They are no better than the playground bullies I had to deal with as a kid, but their victims have more rage and weapons at their disposal than fists and a table. They’re crazy to keep provoking these people. Another hashtag is gaining movement through Ahmed, one I fully back … or follow.

You won’t catch me crying ‘Je Suis Charlie’, I don’t follow Charlie Hebdo, I don’t back what they do. I do feel sorrow for the loss of life, and the subsequent violence that has happened on the back of their animosity.

#jesuisahmed

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Russians banning Transgendered people from Driving … Utter bobbins

It’s been reported in several places, not least of all the BBC, that the Russian government is instituting new laws to prevent certain groups of people from being allowed to drive in Russia, among those groups the transgendered.

http://ift.tt/1yGgW1V

http://ift.tt/1AMFm9w

I’m here to tell you right now, that’s nothing more than clickbait.

The original BBC article was written in response to a news-release by an American publication called “Human Rights First.” This being their primary source, their backs are covered if someone calls out on the clickbait-style spin they’ve put on this.

(Pausing for a second to acknowledge that determined Anti-Russian propaganda in America is a thing at the moment… And done….we don’t really need to dwell on that any further.)

A little further investigation reveals that it is referring to a set of conditions established by the World Health Organization. The restrictions are contained within a document designated ICD-10. It establishes certain classifications for certain diseases and disorders.

You can download ICD-10 if you wish to read it yourself. Here is the link; http://ift.tt/QM0w0s

There is a *lot* I could say about this document, but it’s not relevant. The important parts are that;

A) This is not a Russian Document. This is an International Document providing a readily-available set of universal definitions for local governments and medical agencies to refer to.

B) ID-10s definitions aren’t intended as all-purpose and, because of that, using it is a full and complete reference is unwise. Because I don’t read Russian, I am unable to read the legal proposal itself. But considering that it’s not even law yet, I would remind people that our own government proposed a bill which technically made lesbianism illegal before they realized this would be its indirect effect and (as the whole process is designed to do) edited and fixed it before it went any further.

C) The ID-10 and, by proxy, the Russian law (if we assume it does actually exist in the form suggested by the BBC article which, given the absence of other sources, is questionable) only considers change in gender identity to fall into the category of ‘personality disorder’ where it is CAUSED by other disorders. The easiest illustration of this would be a biological male suffering from schizophrenic personality disorder, one of whom is a female persona. Again, the ID-10 definitions aren’t designed to be perfectly clear on the matter – they are guidelines.

What the Russian government has done is referred to an Internationally recognized, multicultural and impartial agency (the World Health Organisation) when considering what amounts to a sufficiently severe mental disorder worthy of preventing someone from driving.

They have not singled out transgenderism. They have not even included transgenderism. But the BBC has apparently learned what ‘clickbait’ is and the fact that a ‘change of gender identity’ is included, even within a perfectly reasonable context, on the list is sufficient justification for them to spin it and get *you* to do their advertising for them, making it viral.

Which is not to say there aren’t other reasons to question this kind of legislation. But saying that it seeks to prevent transgender people driving is an outright *lie*.

Given that the original article quoting it in this context was American, I will let you draw any further connections yourself.

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Dr. Who

On Sunday the new actor to take on the role of The Doctor was revealed as Peter Capaldi, the Internet has since exploded in all manner of tribute and polarisation of opinion.

Of course I am no different and I too have opinions. Usually you’ll hear the phrase “Opinions are like arseholes, everyone’s got one but we don’t all want to see or hear it”. In this case it’s my blog and ill write what I want. After all that’s what blogs are all about.

Dr. Who fans are a big and diverse bunch, we have 11 past Doctors to choose from, so I you ask 10 people who their favourite is you’ll likely get a dozen different answers.

Of the ‘new batch’ I favour Christopher Ecclestone’s incarnation; he had just the right balance of humour, alien-ness, and seriousness to be ‘right’. Those attributes, to my way of thinking, made home come across in a similar way to Tom Baker’s incarnation.

I have to admit that I found David Tennant’s gurning and facial contortions off putting. I also disliked the levels of emo and angst in his stories, but I can’t blame the actor for that.

Matt Smith’s Doctor was generally much more fun and I did prefer him to Tennant in the role, but he lacked the subtle menace that Ecclestone mustered, even when caught in the Pandorica and monologuing about what not to put in a trap Smith lacked any menace.

Storytelling and pacing is what’s been the main let down in the series since the reboot; most episodes are self contained so the series lacks the cliff-hanger endings I’m used to from my childhood. This makes the episodes rush through what could be a wonderfully complex story leaving us as an audience feeling robbed of the thrill the show should have. It also means that each season is woefully short.

Then there’s the magic wa- I mean Sonic Screw Driver. It used tone just a gadget, now it’s wafted around several times an episode and used by the storyteller as a Deus-Ex-Mechanica. I suspect this is either because the writers have a huge fondness for the gadget, or can’t wrap up the story son enough without alien techno-magic. What ever happened to the companions? Not enough sadly.

Yes, I said companions, plural. The show works at best when it has an ensemble cast … A crowded TARDIS is a good TARDIS. For too long since the reboot we’ve had just one or two companions, bring us more travelers, more people to accompany the Doctor; comedy relief, challenging intellect, anachronism, opposing viewpoint, any /all of those tropes in the TARDIS would spice up the currently dull stories.

Please can we stop putting The Earth in danger – some of the best episodes happen elsewhere, and the show felt more – believable (as far as a 900 year old humanoid alien time traveller can be believable) when it didn’t mess with exposing the whole planet (in the contemporary time) to the existence of aliens.

Anyway, that’s way too much ranting about the show, I should be talking about the new guy. Peter Capaldi is a great actor, best known for aggressive roles or bad guy roles (the thick of it / Neverwhere). I hope this means a return to some simmering menace and calm alien-ness.

I also hope we see more companions joining him. There have been some corking potential companions that seem to have been discarded; Jen (The Doctor’s Daughter), she could lend a military and intellectual companion to the mix; Lady Christina DeSouza (Planet of the Dead), she would lend an aristocratic, roguish element, again with intellect.

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